The mobile communication industry is facing the demand of high data rate (and applications, e.g. video applications) on mobile phones to compete with the data rate on wired systems. To meet the increasing demand, standards such as High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) are being developed within the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) standard. However, higher date rates may necessitate better signal quality at both a mobile terminal (the mobile phone) and a base station.
For a mobile terminal at an edge of a mobile communications cell, the signal quality may be limited by thermal noise, noise figure of the mobile terminal, noise figure of the base station, as well as a channel quality (fading), limiting a reliable data transfer. Further, feasible high data rates may be obtained only closer to the base station.
To that end, a method to facilitate high data rates is to expand an active area for the mobile terminal. More specifically, a quantity of base stations is increased to minimize the distance between the mobile terminal and the base station. Another method to facilitate high data rates is to increase the signal quality at the mobile terminal. More specifically, a second receiver chain (diversity receiver) is employed at the mobile terminal.